A Dragon In the Palace

by William King

  The praise pleased me even as Bruno and Octavia stared daggers at me. If they had been capable of focusing their venom into a death spell, I would have been struck down on the spot.

  “That is very kind of Master Lucas, Your Grace,” I said.

  “It’s nothing less than the boy deserves, You Grace,” Master Lucas chortled.

  “And how did you enjoy the sermon?” the Duke asked. There was a silence. I felt as if a trap had suddenly appeared in front of me even though I did not understand what it was. Everyone listened very closely from my response. I noticed that Master Lucas in particular was paying attention.

  “It was inspiring, Your Grace.” I was simply being honest. It had reassured me. Everyone looked more relaxed. Particularly Master Lucas. Apparently, I had said the right thing.

  “It is good for one so young and in such a profession to be part of the faith,” Frater Franco said from behind the Duke. He looked grim. Frater Jonas on the other hand was nodding enthusiastically.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, sir,” I said, feelingas if I was stumbling towards a trap.

  Mistress Iliana came to my rescue. “The boy is both faithful and diligent,” she said. “I believe he will go far in Your Grace’s service.”

  “I certainly hope so,” the Duke said. “But now, I must take my leave. The business of administration never stops.”

  We all bowed and the Duke made his departure followed by his daughter. She glanced back at us and I felt certain that she was looking at me. I tried moving my hand in a small circular wave and I thought she responded.

  Once the Duke was gone everyone relaxed. The chatter of conversation began. The Duke was everyone’s social superior. Everyone had to wait and listen upon what he had to say. There had to be deference. But most of the people left were equals or close to it. The constraint had vanished.

  First Minister Kahil moved towards me. He eyed me warily. I noticed that his gaze was bloodshot, and his jowls reminded me somewhat of an old pig. He smiled and his face was transformed. Suddenly he looked charming.

  “The Duke was speaking nothing less than the truth,” he said. “I can assure you you will go far in his service if you prove loyal and diligent.”

  His tone was amiable but I heard the warning in it. It was obvious that I had better not consider being anything but loyal and diligent. Nonetheless, he seemed willing to be pleasant to me. I noticed that he kept a distance from Mistress Iliana.

  There was no humour in her smile. She did not like him threatening me however vaguely. Not so much because she was concerned about my safety but because any threat to me reflected badly on her prestige. There was going to be considerable jousting surrounding my position at court. Master Lucas also decided to take part in the fray. “First Minister Kahil, you should take care, this boy will be a powerful sorcerer some day.”

  I wondered why he had said that. Kahil flinched. He was a man more used to making threats than getting them and the implication that he should somehow be intimidated by a fifteen-year-old boy upset him. It seemed almost as if Master Lucas was going out of his way to make us enemies. By the way the Chamberlain’s eyes narrowed, I suspected that he knew that. He was a shrewd judge of men, whatever else he was.

  “I believe we shall take our leave,” Mistress Iliana said.

  I was happy for Mistress Iliana to lead us out into the courtyard. We made our way back to her apartments and she walked to my room with me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Be sure to change your clothes,” she said. “I believe Jay’s family lives down in the Stew. It’s a rough area and you don’t want anything to mark you out as having money.”

  I had not even thought of that. I realised that I had a lot to learn. “Yes, mistress. Does that mean I should also leave the Duke’s gift?”

  “No. Only if you don’t want to risk it being stolen.”

  I took off the amulet. For a moment, I toyed with leaving the wraithstone as well, but Mistress Iliana shook her head. “Keep that with you always.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  “And you will have to leave Red here as well,” she said. “He’s too recognisable.”

  That thought had not occurred to me either. I wondered if he would even leave me. We had never been separated before. Just the thought of it made me anxious. I put him down on the table and said, “wait here, boy,”

  He looked up at me with big eyes, waiting for something. I found some sausage for him. “Mistress,” I said. “Could you keep an eye on him for me.”

  “Of course,” she said. I was surprised by how readily she acquiesced. I would have expected her to protest that she had more important things to do than babysit a dragonling.

  “Thank you, mistress,” I said.

  There was a knock on the door and I heard two familiar voices chatting, laughing, and then falling silent. Ghoran and Jay were here.

  “Just a minute,” I said. I looked at the clothes and Mistress Iliana looked at me, she obviously understood what was going through my mind. “You can get changed, boy.”

  I went to the other side of the four-poster bed and, screened by the mosquito curtain, changed as fast as I could, then I opened the door. Jay and Ghoran stared at me. “Look like boy from the road come back,” Ghoran said.

  Jay was a bit more circumspect. “Actually, it’s quite wise,” he said. “You won’t exactly fit in but you look a lot better than you would in court clothes.”

  “Go,” Mistress Iliana said. I stepped in through the door and Red took to the air to follow. I turned and pointed back Mistress Iliana and said, “stay.”

  The dragonling dropped to the table again and waited. He looked at me as if this were some new game we were playing. I closed the door behind me and immediately was aware of a sense of abandonment. It almost made me open the door again. I had a small form banging against it and then whimpering noises starting.

  “Go, now, boy, or you never will,” Mistress Iliana said. I stood there for a moment undecided and then did my best to project a wave of reassurance to the dragonling. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back for you.”

  For a moment I felt a surge of something almost like affection. I did my best to return it. I must’ve stood there looking blissed out for long moments because I felt Ghoran’s heavy hand on my shoulder. “No need to daydream. We should be on way. Jay family have food. Won’t eat itself.”

  “It’s good to see that you have your priorities right, you big northern toad,” Jay said. He was doing his best to sound his usual cheerful self but I detected a note of unease in his voice. He licked his lips and looked around in a shifty fashion. Red whimpered again and I projected reassurance, even as I walked away. The sense of abandonment returned and I fought down the urge to run back and hug the dragonling.

  There were going to be times in the future we would need to be separated. I told myself that this time would be the hardest. It would get easier over time. I kept beaming reassurance at him and the message that I would return soon.

  I felt an impression of being pinned in place. I had a sudden image of hands holding me. Mistress Iliana was restraining the dragonling from banging himself against the door. Such was a sense of panic that I almost abandoned my resolve. Mistress Iliana shouted again, “Go.”

  I wondered if this was the whole point of the exercise to separate myself from Red. I could not imagine what sinister purpose my mistress might have but then she was a full-fledged sorcerer and I was not. I was merely reflecting Red’s panic with my thoughts. I needed to get that under control for I would only reinforce it. It did not occur to me then, as it would at a more cynical age, that holding on to the dragon was one way of ensuring I came back.

  I kept beaming reassurance at him and slowly as we walked through the Palace, the sense of panic dwindled away. It never entirely vanished but it became more and more muffled. Little did I know what dire events would ensue before I saw Red again.

  “Look like you swallow lemon,” Ghoran said.

/>   “I miss Red,” I said. I expected them to mock me for it but they didn’t.

  “I understand that,” Jay said. “I had a puppy once. He used to howl every time I left the house. Kept it up for a few solid days. Eventually though he saw the light and settled down. You got to separate from them sometime.”

  “Yes, maybe,” I said.

  We headed south towards the palace gate. Jay and Ghoran paused to talk to the sentries on duty and I stood beside them, making sure that the guards got a good look at me in my old clothes, because I feared that if I tried to get back into the Palace again and they did not recognise me, I would be turned away.

  It would not be good to be stuck alone in this strange city. I was already considering that I could be separated from Jay and Ghoran.

  We headed down the street, quite literally. The road sloped away from the Palace. High walls lined the thoroughfare. Over them loomed mansions. It was easy enough to spot that this district was occupied by the extremely rich. The doors were large and elaborate. The walls were topped with rusty nails or broken glass. Clearly no one was going to be climbing over them. Some houses even had their own elaborate guard towers.

  At each gateway stood a man at arms, or a servant in an elaborate tunic. Some of the gear looked less than practical, as if it was intended to display the wealth of the house’s owner, rather than protect the watchman. All of these sentinels studied us nervously, as if they expected trouble. It was not what I expected at all.

  Ghoran made mocking comments as we passed. Jay babbled, talking much faster than normal, as if he got more nervous the further he was from the palace. “Normally, if I wasn’t a soldier, I would never been seen dead in this part of the city. The watch would pick me up and take me to the clink as quick as look at me. That’s the way it is up here and it’s been getting worse with riots and all the refugees flooding into the city.”

  As if summoned by his words, a group of burly looking men, in black tunics marked with a white stripes appeared. Each carried a bludgeon. Their leader carried a hooked staff. They stared at us as we walked towards them.

  “Afternoon,” Ghoran shouted cheerfully, unintimidated by the way they glared at him.

  “What are you doing here?” The watch sergeant asked.

  “I’ve got leave,” Jay said and produced a token from inside his tunic. He held it out to the watch sergeant for inspection. “We’re soldiers in the service of the Duke.”

  He seemed to feel a need to justify his presence here. His protests had the quality of an old habit. The watchmen inspected us as if memorising our faces. I felt certain that they would know all of us again. Of course, Ghoran with his great height and his red hair and his paler than normal skin, was easy to recognise wherever he went.

  “We’ll be on our way then,” Jay said. “Have a good afternoon.”

  They did not wish us one in return.

  “Bastards,” Jay muttered as soon as we were safe distance away. “If we not had our tokens, they would have lifted us for vagrancy.”

  “Spider come down station house and knock few heads together,” Ghoran said. “He not take such things kindly.”

  “He might at that,” Jay said, briefly cheered by the thought. “But we’d have to be there for some time before they find out.”

  “So?” Ghoran asked. “Not first time I in cell.”

  “That in no way surprises me,” Jay said. “But we’d miss dinner.”

  “No want that,” said Ghoran. “That tragedy.”

  The mansions grew smaller and less impressive by the block. Eventually, we entered a large market square, full of vendors and snake charmers and singers and storytellers and beggars and wandering holy men. Stalls sold all sorts of food. Smells and noise assaulted my nose and ears. People crowded everywhere amid a swirl of flies and biting insects. There was a stench of animal excrement and spice.

  I felt a sudden surge of panic. So many people. Like being in the centre of a hive. The city was much more densely packed than the Palace. I had thought the Duke’s home seethed with people but that was compared to my family farm. I saw now that it was comparatively empty compared to the streets of Solsburg, as was the area where the mansions of the nobles lay.

  We shouldered through the crowd. Beggars grabbed at my clothes. I pulled myself away from men with no legs, women with no noses. Starved looking girls clutched small, sick looking babies. I felt the urge to reach into my pocket and take out the purse full of coins.

  Jay must have known what was going through my mind because he grabbed my wrist and said, “don’t. Most of them work for the Beggars Guild. And if they don’t, any money you give them will be taken away from them, and all they will get is a good beating in return.”

  It seemed cruel to me. The Holy Sun told us to be charitable to our fellow men, although many people ignored that injunction.

  “He right,” Ghoran said. A small coin had fallen at his feet. Jay was bending to pick it up when Ghoran put his sandal on top of it and shook his head almost imperceptibly. He looked at the girl then at his foot and then he moved it. The girl looked grateful as she scooped up the coin. We moved on.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Jay said.

  “Done what?” Ghoran asked. “Somebody let farthing fall. Just made sure girl got it.”

  “I know who that someone was,” Jay said. “And he’s an idiot.”

  “I bet he not,” Ghoran said. “I bet he brave, handsome, and mighty. All girls love him. You just jealous.”

  “He’s delusional as well,” Jay said. “The southern sun has that effect on some northerners, or so I am told.”

  I stared in wonder as a giant thundered past. He was twice as tall as Ghoran and must have weighed ten times as much. His features were broad and brutal. His lips were very thick and his nose very broad. He wore only leather trousers and a massive harness. Strapped on his back like a soldier’s pack was a howdah that looked like a combination of a basket and a tent.

  The crowd parted to let the giant go by. I heard voices talking inside the contraption he carried.

  The giant’s skin was tanned but I suspected that originally it had been as pale as Ghoran’s. His hair was cropped, as was his beard. His eyes were sad and tired. Under normal circumstances I would have been terrified but there was something about this creature that spoke only of melancholy. He did not seem to have any aggression left. It was just as well. His muscles were so immense he could have uprooted a tree.

  I watched as he moved off into the crowd. “You’d think you’d never seen a giant before,” Jay said.

  “I never have,” I said. “Are they all that big?”

  “Him small,” Ghoran said. “In the Northlands giants almost twice size. That one dwarf.”

  “Only you could call a giant a dwarf,” Jay said.

  “Not my fault your language stupid,” Ghoran said. “Northlander understand my meaning if I spoke tongue of homeland.”

  “Maybe you should go back there,” Jay said.

  “One day. When I rich and famous. I return and have revenge on my enemies.”

  “I’ll bet they are just trembling in their boots at that thought,” Jay muttered.

  “No they not,” Ghoran said. “It better. I take them by surprise.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “I always serious,” Ghoran said.

  “It’s not the first time he’s talked about revenge,” Jay said. “They’re obsessed with it up in the North. Have all these laws about it. You have to pay so much for killing a man’s brother. So much for raping his sister. So much for wiping out his family.”

  Ghoran said. “So?”

  “It’s barbaric,” Jay said. “If someone killed one of my family, I would want justice. I would go to the Duke.”

  “What he do?”

  “He would punish the offenders,” Jay said. He did not sound entirely confident of this.

  “Maybe,” Ghoran said. “If sister killer not rich. Or he not pay bribe to Duke
. In Northlands man’s family get bribe. Not overlord. Anyway not money that counts. It just excuse for bloodletting when you no get paid.”

  Jay said. “That’s more like the Ghoran I know.”

  “Nothing wrong with bloodletting.”

  “How did that giant get here?” I asked. “I thought they only came from the Northlands.”

  “True that,” Ghoran said. “They sometimes captured and sold as slaves. They not only ones. Lots of people sold as slaves here. Market for it to East there,” he said. He pointed off to the far side of the market square. “You buy anything in merchant plaza.”

  “That’s true,” Jay said he sounded very proud of the fact.

  “Slaves?” I said.

  “Yes,” Jay said.

  “I thought the Holy Sun said that it was wrong to keep humans as slaves,” I said.

  “Giant’s aren’t humans. Anyway, it’s not illegal to keep humans as slaves, just worshippers of the Holy Sun,” Jay said.

  “There plenty slaves here,” Ghoran said. “Plenty places in the Sunlands keep slaves.”

  He did not sound like his normal cheerful self. He sounded angry and bitter.

  “You said you were a slave once,” I said.

  “Once,” Ghoran said. “Was enough. Never again.”

  I thought about the giant. “How do you capture a giant? How do you keep one a slave? It could break any chain.”

  “Dig pit,” Ghoran said. “He fall in.”

  “Cut off his nadgers,” Jay said.

  “You’re not serious?” I said.

  “Yes,” Ghoran said, “he is. It change them. They stop be violent. They get gentle.”

  “It’s like what happens when you geld a stallion,” Jay said.

  “What you know about gelding stallions, city boy,” Ghoran asked.

  “I know that they lose a lot of their friskiness,” Jay said.

  “That one way of putting it,” Ghoran said.

  “You’re joking, both of you, right?” I said.

  “No,” Ghoran said. Jay shook his head.

  “You see giant. He look like he going to tear you apart?” Ghoran asked.